From Folk to Fury: The Duhks, Steppin‘ In It and Sponge Soak up a High-powered Weekend

Ah, the three-day weekend. Why wait for the Labor Day? Why not just create a three-day weekend just for the sake of it, just for the sake of good music? After all you deserve it. Well the guys at the Loading Dock in Traverse City think so and that’s exactly what they have done. On Thursday, July 29 Canadian folk sensation The Duhks perform along with favorites Steppin’ In It in a smoke-free show. The two groups come back on Friday (smokes allowed); then on Saturday, Sponge, the guys who revitalized the Detroit garage rock scene, come to town.
Okay, you have to really love music to go from folk one night to power alternative rock the next. But all three bands are known innovators in their respective genres and each worth a listen.

THE DUHKS
The Duhks boast that they are “a young kick ass folk band.” They back it up on stage and were definitely one of the highlights at Blissfest this year. In America bands start in the garage, in Canada they start in the kitchen.
“Yeah, my dad was a concert promoter and booked the bands at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, so I grew up with music in the house and musicians over all the time,” said Leonard Podolak, bandleader and banjoist. “One day I invited a couple of musician friends home and we started jamming in the dinning room. It was rude, it was crude, it was loud, it was raucous, but it was exciting and danceable music.”
Pretty soon that old dining room started filling up and a band was formed. Like all bands they needed a name that identified their sound, something catchy.
Scrüj MacDuhk?
“The name was a total accident. We were just joking around with the name Duck and we made up this funny spelling,” said Podolak.
When friends pointed out that the name was similar to Donald Duck’s Uncle Scrooge McDuck the band tried changing their name.
“We tried dropping the MackDuhk and it sounded terrible,” said Podolak. “So for a long time we stayed as Scrüj MacDuhk.”
It wasn’t copyright infringement that caused the band to change their name; personnel changes evolved them to become simply The Duhks.
And are these guys known! They are tearing up the folk circuit. Their music blends the traditions of Celtic harmonies and Appalachian Old Time Fiddle music with French-Canadian gigues and reels. They pay homage to the great songwriters of the tradition while mixing in tunes written by band members.
“The music we play really speaks to people,” said Podolak. “These tunes have been played for hundreds of years. They’re part of our history.’’

STEPPIN’ IN IT
Okay, this might be a little friendly battle of the bands, maybe a little preview of the Olympics. Look, in America we don’t like to lose, especially to our neighbors of the north. We will give them the advantage in hockey but not in music. Any band they send us, we have one that can compete with them. Proof of that is with Steppin’ In It.
Hailing from Lansing, these folkies have risen to the top. Lansing may not seem like a folk capital but it does have the famed Elderly Instruments store and it’s a safe bet that Canadian folk bands get some of their instruments from Elderly.
Steppin’ In It have become somewhat of a fixture in the area and are one band that virtually guarantees a full house when they play here.
Last year when folk legend Greg Brown played Interlochen he asked the boys to take the stage as his opener; they received a standing ovation. For his encore he brought them out and they jammed together. Afterwards Brown and Steppin’ In It headed to Union Street for open mic night and jammed till closing.
So The Duhks better bring their A-game because Steppin’ In It always comes to play. The group is currently touring the country promoting their new release “Hidden In The Lowlands.”
“That’s an understatement. We have put 70,000 miles on our van the past couple of years,” laughs Dominic Suchyta, who plays the upright bass. “We are playing about 200 live shows a year.”
All those miles have resulted in some impressive appearances including the industry-significant International Folk Alliance Conference in San Diego earlier this spring (The Duhks were also there and received rave reviews). The band was also invited to the Newport Folk Festival and just played the Woodie Guthrie Folk Festival in Okalahoma.
“At times it seems like a dream,” said Suchyta. “It is great to see all the crowds out for our shows. If we played rock and roll I am not sure that anyone would come out. I think our success stems from the fact that we have a band that is willing to drive 20 hours straight to get to a gig. We are all on the same page.”
So just what is that page?
“Well our music has been described many ways from Americana roots to western swing,” said Suchyta. “We play a lot of different kinds of music.”
Maybe just calling it great is easier. The band performs a lot of originals and the dance floor is never empty.
So who is better? Who will take the gold? The early money would have to be on Steppin’ In It, as they have become the perennial favorite in the area. But just ask the Los Angeles Lakers; there are no guarantees except maybe this one: catch both of these bands both nights and you win.

SPONGE
Okay I like folk music as much as the next guy, but after two nights I need some rock and roll, and Sponge is definitely the right band to fill one’s thirst for hard drivin’ Detroit rock on Saturday, July 31. These guys soaked their way onto the scene in the mid-’90s as the industry’s answer to the post grunge movement.
Sponge quickly became MTV darlings and their debut release “Rotting Pinata” has sold more then a million copies worldwide. With hit songs “Plowed” and “Molly” (based on Molly Ringwald from her role in “Sixteen Candles”), Sponge received a lot of radio airplay. Their sophomore release “Wax Ecstatic” featured the hit songs “Have You Seen Mary,” and the album’s title. The back-to-back success of releases led the group to becoming one of the headliners of the Lollapalooza tour in both 1995 and 1996.
By the end of the ‘90s Sponge seemed to dry out. Members started going their own way. The group’s lead singer, Vinnie Dombroski, began dabbling with the blues, playing drums for Detroit blues band and forming the alt country band The Orbitsuns. Dombroski reformed Sponge a couple of years ago and splits his time between Sponge and The Orbitsuns.
“In today’s economy it takes two jobs to survive,” said Dombroski. “So I play in two bands to make it happen.”
So has Dombroski changed The Sponge sound to go with the times?
“People kind of understand this band to be more of an energetic rock band than a pretty-faced, ballad group of guys,” said Dombroski. “We’ve always felt we were a rock band and when I say rock band, I mean a modern rock band, meaning we’ve got two loud guitar players and big amps. And we take our early influences and really modernize them.”

For ticket information and show details call the Loading Dock at (231) 941-4422. As for swinging the three-day weekend, take Friday off and tell your boss it is a new national holiday. One where the bank, post office and government employees go to work but the rest of us don’t. It doesn’t have a name yet but Hallmark is working on it. Of course not showing up to work on Friday might result in some permanent time off. View On Our Website